27 June 2012

Five Japanese Novels in Translation

This year I have been reading as much Japanese literature in translation as I can lay my hands on. Here are five that I recommend.

Junichi Saga, Confessions of a Yakuza, (Kodansha, 1991).

Not a novel, but it reads like one. A doctor attends to a dying man, who recounts his life as a gangster before, during, and a bit after WWII. Part of what's surprising about this story is the near absence of anything we would consider hardcore crime. Most of the yakuza's career revolves around illicit gambling activities or associated crimes like moving people from place to place after curfew. And a lot of attention is paid to getting along with the neighbours. There is nearly no gun play, and when one murder does take place it's treated as a catastrope by the crime bosses. Most of the yakuza's troubles stem from his relations with women, which tend to lead him toward shirking his duties. There is a graphic but thankfully quick account of venereal surgery.

Fumiko Enchi, The Waiting Years, (Kodansha, 1980).

This story of a contest of wills between a powerful husband and his dutiful wife spans the period from the 1870s to the First World War. Many other novelists would have gotten an 800-page family saga out of this material, but Enchi is just interested in the points of greatest dramatic tension, and brings the novel to a sharp conclusion after only 188 pages. It is said this book took nine years to write, and I'm sure much of the time was spent cutting it down. Passing over the first part of the marriage, Enchi begins only when the wife Tomo has already received the humiliation of being sent to choose her husband Yoshitomo a concubine. You follow Tomo down the years, waiting for her act of revenge.

Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain, (Kodansha, 1979).

A novel about the Hiroshima bombing, this is nevertheless a wise and even funny book about human nature. In the midst of unprecedented disaster, the characters stay true to their individual concerns, suggesting that the key to survival might in the end be the power of denial. Shigematsu, a rather important man in his own mind, spends the days after the bomb on various important tasks that lead him to crisscross the demolished and radioactive city, taking the reader on a Dantean tour of the aftermath. Shigematsu witnesses horrors, and comes close to death himself a few times, but he doesn't become overwhelmed, which I think is Ibuse's strategy for getting the reader through the novel. There are many things he wants you to see, but in order for that to happen you have to finish the book. You're not grief-struck at the end, but sadness and compassion have crept up on you.

Yoko Ogawa, The Housekeeper + The Professor, (Harvill Secker, 2009).

This is the only recent novel of the bunch, and it certainly feels like something from a different generation. Japanese history is not as big a concern here. It's a small story about a woman from a housekeeping service who is assigned a client who has lost the ability to form memories. Every day she has to reintroduce herself and explain the purpose of her visit. The client was once a mathematics professor, and over the course of the novel he teaches the housekeeper and her son about numbers. They made a film of this book, but shifted the point of view to the son. Which is too bad I think because one of the points of the book is the need to respect housecleaners more. Baseball is also an important element, as a creator of community and a source of cool stats.

Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes (Vintage, 1964).

An entomologist travels to a seaside village to collect insects. He discovers that a huge sand dune has buried part of the town, but that the inhabitants have dug holes in the dune to preserve their houses. When he asks where he can stay overnight they put him up in one of the houses in one of the holes, but then they won't let him out. They made a film of this one too, in the Sixties, in black and white.